EduPulse Towers has been inundated with excellent book reviews since our online launch a few months ago. Not to the point of fatigue, but certainly approaching a sense that this run of brilliance must surely end soon?
Cue Georgina Durrant and her latest book: SEND Strategies for the Primary Years: Practical ideas and expert advice to use pre-diagnosis.
It's hard not be overly effusive when talking about this book: practical, immensely digestible and eminently wise, SEND Strategies for Primary Years has me mourning for the book I wish I'd had when I first started teaching. I'm a SENDCo during the daylight hours and every page is knock-out standard being applicable to ETCs and veteran SENDCos alike: where else can you get such expert advise at the tip of your fingers?
Well, actually, probably a well-known search engine but that's not the point of this book.
In one of our recent podcast episodes In Conversation with David Didau, we spoke about the lack of a general teaching repository of knowledge; a place that could be referenced when a 'new' theory is accidentally a rehash of something from the 1920's. It would be a chance for teachers to pause before jumping on bandwaggons and take learning moments directly from the lived experience of our forebears. Alas, no such Library of Alexandria exists but - if it did - Durrant's offer here would replace all previous attempts to codify SEND.
It's hard not be overly effusive when talking about this book: practical, immensely digestible and eminently wise, SEND Strategies for Primary Years has me mourning for the book I wish I'd had when I first started teaching.
The Department for Education (with updated figures expected this month) has said in their regular reporting:
This rise is incompatible with the support available to them and, more crucially, to us.
One of the many issues facing SEND education in the UK - aside from funding and the above rise in numbers - is the lack of diagnostic appointments, waiting lists when someone finally agrees to assess or Local Authorities operating above the law insisting that schools and SENDCos use their paperwork and submit minimum quotas of evidence for an EHCNA* which is then denied. This backlog effect has led teachers and schools to make more robust their SEND offer because, as Branden (1995) said "No one is coming to save you..." and we feel truly alone. Durrant's book offers a solution that shouldn't really be needed but it is and I am personally incredibly grateful for the work and effort that has so clearly been ploughed into this definitive manual of SEND.
Structure
A feast for the eyes with clear and regular headings and kaleidoscopic in its design, the book is superbly sectioned with chapters on Speech and Language, Literacy, Numeracy and Motor skills with additional chapters regarding neurodiversity and emotional regulation.
What Durrant has achieved sounds impossible: a practical and expert guide to SEND that is digestible, easy to understand and immediately useful.
Quite often you can find yourself shouting at a book (just me?) when you require a solution to a specific problem. Many SEND books are overbearingly academic and it can take a veritable epoch to wade through the high-born medical language and terminology that is so often necessitated in SEND books and how-to guides. This is definitely not the case for Durrant's book.
Each chapter contains:
Overview - including definitions and domain-specific terminology
What you might notice - cues and clues from inside your classroom that might lead you to consider using:
Strategies - subject-specific tips and tricks on how to make your lessons more accessible to those most in need
Activities & Intervention Activities - generic and specific activities that will increase progress
Resources - this is the best bit! QR codes linking to videos and resources that you can instantly use to better your teaching
See? Digesible, useful and immediately practical. I need to see a problem and not spend hours searching for a potential solution but rather I need to pick up this book, check my observations against possible causes and curate strategies that might help using resources I haven't had to create because we don't have the time.
Definitive but not absolute
Who would want it to be absolute, anyway? Our sphere moves so quickly that some of Durrant's specific work will naturally be out of vogue soon, much like the depreciation of a brand new car. However, Durrant's strength is in her simple truths that radiate from the book: using the language and terminology contained within it's brightly coloured and shiny cover (it feels and smells good, which is always a good sign!) could vastly improve the education experience for your most vulnerable young people if the system is failing them. Should they get a referral, evidence you gather as a result of using Durrant's suggestions will almost certainly increase the likelihood of their needs being taken more seriously than others on the waiting list.
What Durrant has achieved sounds impossible: a practical and expert guide to SEND that is digestible, easy to understand and immediately useful. It blasts through tropes and opinions to bring to light the realities of SEND in our schools and offers real-world solutions.
I'm using this book on Monday morning - buy it and do the same.
SEND Strategies for the Primary Years: Practical ideas and expert advice to use pre-diagnosis. is by Georgina Durrant and published by Bloomsbury.
References
Branden, N. (1995). The six pillars of self-esteem. Bantam.
Department for Education. (2023, June 22). Special Educational Needs in England. Explore-Education-Statistics.service.gov.uk. https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/special-educational-needs-in-england
*Education, health and care needs assessment. A deeply wonderful part of this book is the immediate explanation of the myriad acronyms used by us teaching folk.
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